Amazon enters home robot market

Today, Amazon introduced a revolutionary new home product called Astro. Astro is a unique household robot that combines multiple features like intelligent motion, home monitoring, peace of mind and Alexa. Unlike other household robots that have been introduced, Astro is multifunctional by design, combining personality, security, senior care, Alexa, a large display, and autonomous navigation.

Don’t be fooled: Astro is more than Alexa on wheels. Astro has its own personality. And while it doesn’t evolve and can’t be trained yet, it is refreshing nonetheless. Although the robot responds to Alexa or Astro, it does not use the familiar Alexa voice unless asked a particular question that requires an audible response. 

Astro will follow you around effortlessly 

One of Astro's most impressive features is its ability to follow you. When I tested Astro, it followed me effortlessly through a maze of chairs, tables, and toys, carefully avoiding collisions or getting stuck. Another benefit is how quietly it moves. Depending on the flooring type, the only way to hear the robot is from the sound it plays through its speaker to let you know it is coming. 

It is very good at finding the rooms identified in the accompanying app. You can say, "Astro, go into the living room," and it will immediately move to the center of that room. Besides its impressive mobility, Astro is also good at facial recognition. The robot uses what Amazon calls Visual ID to scan your face so it can recognize you. In my experience with the robot, this feature worked well each time, and I found it was capable of finding a specific person in a crowded room. Like robot vacuums, when Astro needs to be charged, it automatically finds its base. 

Security and senior care are the primary value propositions 

In a nutshell, the main features of Astro are security and senior care. When Alexa Guard is enabled, Astro can patrol the home, based on a specific duration set by the user, and take 360-degree pictures of each room. It can also alert users if a person is in the home it doesn’t recognize while in away-mode. 

I also found Astro was very capable of finding its way around the house, even with out-of-bound zones. For example, I asked it to go into a specific room of the house, and I set an out-of-bounds area that would force it to take only one path to the next room. Astro found this singular path without hesitation. So, from a security perspective, Astro has a lot to offer and would be especially beneficial to users with a large, single-story home. 

Aging-in-place could actually become a trend

In terms of senior care, Astro could be the catalyst for jumpstarting a niche market. For example, today’s consumer-grade senior care solutions often rely on sensors that report patterns and alert caregivers if something happens out of the ordinary. Others rely on visual cameras that can be invasive. 

Astro offers something unique because it can act as a companion device and help seniors with medication or health risks. For instance, blood pressure devices and other health monitors can be placed in the back storage area, and Astro could find the senior when it is time to take medication. Then, through Bluetooth, those vitals could be sent to a caregiver. For seniors that use a walker, Astro could carry food or drinks to a certain part of the house. 

Moreover, many senior care devices do not offer visual verification in emergency situations. While a passive solution may trigger an alert when a senior fails to enter the kitchen or open a cabinet as they usually do, there is no indication of what is happening in that home. In this case, Astro could provide visual verification by going room-to-room.  

The periscope introduces versatility 

I found Astro was most useful for video calls. While the camera embedded on the screen offers a poor viewing angle for video calls, users can extend the periscope up to about 4 feet high. Combined with a wide-angle camera, the periscope added a new dimension for video chats. Unlike using a tablet or smartphone that offers minimal field of view and that you often have to hold, with Astro, an entire room can be captured on screen, and the camera can follow you. For my family, this feature was the most impressive and useful, especially with small children that often fight over who gets to hold the phone. 

Personality is fun but doesn’t evolve

What I found impressive about Astro was that it seemed to always react when I asked it to do something. For example, I could ask it to sing, dance, wink, cry, laugh, smile, beatbox, and turn certain directions. It will also respond when asked about its favorite color by changing its eye color, and when asked about its favorite animal, it will act out the animal with movements, sounds, and changes to its eye expressions.  

Overall, I found its personality to be subtle and intriguing. Over time, the value of its personality would hinge on OTA updates and the introduction of AI. For example, asking Astro to wink or dance would likely lose its appeal after a few months, but if the robot continuously received new tricks or could eventually be trained, then the long-term value would be clearer. 

There is no competition, for now

A few robots that could be positioned as similar to Astro include Jibo, Kuri, Aibo, Aido (not released), Buddy, and Zenbo. From this list, only a few made it in the market for more than a few months. I believe the only active products available now are Aibo and Zenbo. The rest remain unavailable to the public or have been discontinued. My understanding is that many of these robots have also been repurposed as a B2B approach rather than being sold directly to consumers. Meaning, these robots are being considered for other applications, like healthcare, education, or as information kiosks. 

In fact, despite the surprisingly long list of social/home robots, none have all the features of Astro, and most do not have a screen – or if they have a screen, there is no periscope, or they don’t move. So, from my understanding of the competition, where Astro falls short is its inability to be trained/evolve over time, and its facial features cannot be customized. Also, Astro cannot manipulate objects, but consumer robots that can manipulate objects today have been described as glacially slow. Price points for the competition vary greatly, from about $600 to $3,000. 

Privacy steps are taken but are still lacking

In terms of privacy, Amazon says that Visual ID is kept on the robot and is not sent to the cloud. Because the robot has a live view option, each user must physically pair their smartphone with a QR code that shows on Astro’s screen, promoting privacy and security. 

Although the map of the home is kept on the robot, the floorplan is sent to the cloud so users can operate Astro when outside the home network. 

When someone is attempting to use "live view," the screen on the app will be blurred and an audible warning will come from Astro. If someone is in the room with Astro and does not want live view enabled, they can press an END icon, canceling live view. In terms of visual privacy, the robot is missing an actual shutter for its primary camera. Although the periscope hides inside the device, the only indication that Astro is not listening or watching is through a single-press button on top of the robot. 

Final thoughts

Astro is a unique robot that has little to no competition at launch. It moves elegantly through the home, bringing timers and notifications directly to you while providing added visual verification to a home security system. For in-home senior care, Astro could integrate with Amazon’s Care Hub to bring new use cases to a market struggling to gain traction. The robot also reinvents video calls with friends and family. 

Inevitably, this robot will be labeled creepy and unnecessary. Having used the robot for about a week, the only time I found the robot to be creepy was when it was "hanging out," which means, as Amazon describes it, that Astro will go to a part of the house where it thinks everyone is congregating. Trying to watch TV and have the robot stare at you with its eyes, occasionally blinking, was a little unsettling. But if you are concerned about it entering a bedroom or bathroom, you can create out of bounds areas in the app.

Weighing the positives and negatives, if the presumptive buyer of Astro has a small area for the robot to roam, perhaps less than 600 square feet, and video calls aren’t of interest and nor is senior care, then the robot’s utility is questionable. But for consumers with an open mind, a large single-story home, and a regular schedule of video calls, then this robot presents an interesting twist on the digital assistant. Astro will be available in limited quantity before the end of 2021, costing about $999. 

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